DILEMMA: Should Cleveland Guardians RELY on Chase DeLauter & Travis Bazzana On Opening Day?

DILEMMA: Should Cleveland Guardians RELY on Chase DeLauter & Travis Bazzana On Opening Day?

Guardians haven’t signed a bat, they haven’t made a trade and they’ve barely said a word. So their entire 2026 season might rest on Chase Slaughter and Travis Bassana. You are Locked On Guardians, your daily podcast on the Cleveland Guardians, part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your team every day. Welcome back on in Guardians fans to a news list Monday edition of Locked On Guardians. We appreciate you hanging out with us for the next half hour because we’re the only place, let’s be honest, talking about your Cleveland Guardians every single day for the majors, the minors, the draft, everything in between in a snowy covered northeast Ohio. This is part of the Lockdown Podcast Network now. Proud to be the number one sports podcast network. Thank you just Lata if you’re new here, I am one of your two cos for the show have been for the last three years of counting with my friend and co host Jeff Ellis. And I have spent 18 long years covering the Guardians minor league system as a prospect writer and editor at various. Websites and I want to thank you for joining us on the show today. I’m Jeff Ellis. As he mentioned, I’ve been here since the beginning of Locked on with Baseball nearly seven years ago. Before that I was a national writer at Scott in 247 focused on prospects and draft. I want to thank you for making today’s episode your first listen to Amber Day wherever it is you get podcast and and a big shout out to all of our everydayers out there. Thank you for joining us in the conversation. Thank you all. Yes, we love you. Stick around. We’ll still have lots to talk about. I think it’ll be an interesting week. We are down to three episodes a week starting this week, so we will record today, we’ll have an episode on Monday, you’ll have an episode Wednesday, you’ll have an episode Friday. If the Guardians manage to make any big news in between, we’ll be here for you. Because you know Rain season leader Snow, we always deliver today’s show we’re going to be figuring out why there was so much secrecy around Stephen V’s contract extension. We’ll talk about the state of the free agent market and when and if Cleveland lands some of their targets, if any of them are still realistic. But we’re first, we’re debating whether or not Chase the Lauder and or Travis Mazana should be on the Guardians opening day roster. You can’t bet that on FanDuel, but this episode is brought to you by FanDuel. If you want to be Right in the middle of the action during the NFL season. Visit FanDuel.com to place your live NFL bets all season long. So the Guardians have not added a single position player to their roster this off season. When it comes to free agents or trades, Nolan Jones does not count. Sorry. Their public messaging is they don’t want to block any young players and it’s pretty clear those young players would be Chase the Lauder and Travis Mazano. So that begs the question if the Guardians are going to be silent this off season when it comes to position player acquisitions because of that, does that force them or should that force them into a corner? About having Bazana and Delauder on the opening day roster, Is it one, is it both? Is it none? What do you think, Jeff? We. Well, I think it’s kind of a one on one scenario, I gotta be honest. And the reason I state it specifically that way is because I think to me the ladder is an ink on this roster. I think barring an injury, the fact that I brought him up for the postseason and did that with him to be, you know, and you and I thought he was ready to go and tried to play through an injury and it got worse. And he had two to three injuries last year. He’s had two to three injuries every year is the problem. But I think as long as he is healthy, he is the guy. Bazana could play really well and make it a very hard conversation for this team. But the one thing I’ll say, and I know I said there’s no such thing as blocking but with if you already have Chase up, you already kind of have that chance at the prospect incentive pick. Having Bazana stay down a little longer helps you make sure you get that extra year of control. And it’s not necessarily all about, you know, manipulating that exterior control, though I do think that it is important to teams. But I think also having Brito there, who was someone that they have liked, they traded for, they believed in giving him a look, I think kind of also makes sense to do before Bazana. Now Bazana could make it really hard, but I’ll also point out like Chase Lauder made it really hard two years ago and everyone wanted him to jump from low A to the majors. And I’m like, yeah, the only guy who’s done that is Juan Soto. So that’s not going to happen. Pizana could like have the greatest spring training we’ve ever seen and it’s, it’s still going to be spring training. So I think there is a small chance with him. I think there is a, you know, 100 chance with Chase, but I do think we have to add another B, and that’s Juan Brito. And I think while he’s a forgotten man in a lot of places, I think he’s kind of shown enough with the bat the past few years to maybe play a few different spots poorly and hit enough to, you know, I’m gonna, I’m gonna quote you on real quickly and say when they made that trade, you’re like, I see a little bit of Jose in him. So, like way back when they got him. So it’s like there’s, there’s some positive traits. I think he’s got a, a chance and people won’t get excited by this to be at least a league average, bad, if not better. And this team, you know, I’ll take league average at multiple positions. If he can be a league average, you know, outfielder, then you know what, that’s a massive upgrade than what they’ve got in the past few years. So that’s my view on it, at least. I don’t disagree with you here. Here’s a hot take. No one’s gonna like this, except for maybe you. No one else is gonna like this. I think in Travis Bazano’s case, and maybe not necessarily the Lauder, because the injury history, because, you know, postseason doesn’t count towards your service time. Yeah, I think you’re right. 100 right on, burrito. I think you give him a chance. If you’re not gonna, if you’re not gonna add a Brendan Donovan, a Catal Marte, Polanco’s off the board and I don’t even know who else is out there. You can even plug in at second base if you want. Rokio at short and Arias is doing God knows what. I don’t hate that, but yeah, that. Yeah, you could kind of figure out where that goes. I guess I would. I definitely would play service time games with Bazana. Like, he is legitimately the best player in your, in your system now, and he’s the guy you want to develop into the face of your team. I’m 100, 100 playing the service time game with him. I know people aren’t going to like that, but I am. And I’m not saying you wait till July. I know. I don’t give a crap about Travis Bazano’s Super 2 status because to be honest, we don’t know starting in 2027 what things are going to look like that Super 2 thing, that could change for all we know in 2027, 2028. But I would, I would. You know, the Cubs, Chris Bryant did file a grievance to the Cubs about him being a AAA for two weeks and Michael was the third baseman and they brought him up when old got hurt and the Cub, you know, he tried to, to file a grievance and he lost. It’s very hard for players to win grievances in these cases. So I would find a way. Yeah, so yeah, you’re right. That’s a very similar scenario. You’re right. So I, I would 100 forego the idea of Bazana being on the open day roster. Give Burrito a shot. Now if Burrito stinks and you want to pull the plug and go to Bazana, there’s probably no coming back from that. The problem is if you’re going to do that, you can’t do it in like what was all out like in three weeks. Right. Like I think Brian had was in the minors two or three weeks because there’s. What is it like 15 days restricts you from getting that extra year of or that earlier free agency. I, I don’t want to hold Bazana down that long. I would do it just. I know it’s gonna be hard to sell and you create some potentially bad feelings of this. But I would 100% game banana for the extra year because that’s. Do I like it from the, from the fan side and the player side? No, I don’t. But if you’re talking from a pure up team upside, it’s the right play the lotter. It’s a different situation because he’s been so injured and I think at this point he’s ready if he’s healthy and you don’t have any other options like if the Lauder goes to aaa, your outfield right now is, is Schneemann and Jones and Martinez and center and Valera and Right. Like I’m sorry, Delauder, if that’s, if that’s your outfield. A, that’s sad. B, the Lauder needs to be on that roster and there’s going to be no excuse not to have Montelbande roster because you had you trusted him enough to play his major league debut in center field, a position he’s barely played in the postseason. Like I, I and he had missed how many weeks at that point. So there’s no excuse not to have the Lauder on the open day roster unless you bring in. I don’t know you want Brendan Donovan to play center field. I know we talked about Lars Newbar in the ops and the off the air, but unless you’re bringing in someone like that, which they don’t want to do because they don’t want to block guys. So I mean, I would move to Lauder to write if I did those things. But yeah, if you’re not going to bring somebody in legitimate, he needs to be on the open day roster and I don’t care about the seventh year control with him because of his injury history because God only knows if he’s going to get to that seventh year healthy. So for me there’s no excuse for the lotter not to get an open day roster and I think Travis was on. I could have the best spring training ever and I wouldn’t give it a thought. I don’t care about the prospect pick. Maybe the Lauder wins work of the year, you get to pick out of that. But I don’t care about Persona being. I, I would love to have Bazan up here in April. I, I’d say it, but I would manipulate the service time with Bazana. I would. Okay. I don’t know and I, I don’t know if you’re going to get him to sign an extension anyway. If you play the service time games with them, you definitely aren’t going to get them signed to extension because there’s, you’re going to create some, some bad feelings. But it’s a cutthroat business. They need that extra year control, especially since they’re probably going to trade them in the sixth year anyway. So you want to have make sure you have five years with them instead of four. So. All right, we’ll talk more about that. We’ll talk about the free agent market, where the Guardians are, where we’re hoping they may or may not go. And we still talk about the secret, top secret signing of Stephen Pope. NFL Sundays, they move very fast. We know that one big play, suddenly everything in a game could turn on a dime. And that is what makes live betting so exciting because you don’t just sit there and watch the game. You can sit there and react to it in real time while enjoying yourself, being a little bit of responsibility and fun. With fandom, you could bet on things as the actions unfold, every drive, every momentum swing, every highlight. And live betting honestly, is a lot of fun when the games start to shift. There was a lot of fun things you could have done when things were going on in Buffalo, in New England on Sunday all the momentum flips in that game were crazy. The Browns get to host the Dolphins next week, so they’re going to get shellacked again. I would definitely go that direction. Cavs can’t figure things out. The guardians are still plus 1200 to win the American League. The Orioles have jumped them. So all that fun stuff is out there for you on FanDuel. And if you want to get right in the middle of the action this season, visit fandel.com and place all of your live NFL bets on allseason long. Fandel, the game moves fast and so can you. Appreciate you being here with us on Locked on Guardians every single day and thank you for making us the number one sports podcast network. You already live your team, your cleaning Guardians every day. Take it up a level, go ad free, get the show without any interruptions, no ads, and become part of the every day or club access to a members only discord and more for $5 a month or $50 a year. Check out locked on guardians.supercast.com or check the link in the show notes to learn more. All right, so the problem for the Guardians is that they haven’t signed an offensive free agent yet. They haven’t made a trade for one. There’s still time, but if they don’t score runs, they have to have somebody on the roster like the Water Basana. But we’re looking at the free agent market right now and whether the Guardians can actually afford to play somewhere in the middle of this tier and or if they’re just going to punt offense. Jeff yeah, it’s it’s been a weird free agency because let’s be honest, like the I I know people don’t love what Cleveland has done, but the relief market’s been ridiculous and just about every interesting arm nearly is gone. I mean I’ve got maybe like two to three guys left that I have a passing interest in and then like three guys that like camp invites. So there’s a reason why they kind of did what they did. Now we have also talked about how it’s not a great hitter market. You know, one of the guys you and I both circled from the start is still sitting there and Rob Breast Schneider. And then I also would be remiss if I didn’t point out like this past weekend Meryl Kelly getting two years 40 million should help Cleveland because they’ve got, they’ve got rely like Meryl Kelly is a solid 34 and Cleveland’s got some young 4 fives with a lot of control who are Going to cost significantly less than that. And unfortunately for Merrill Kelly, 37, by the way. Yeah, I mean, unfortunately for Merrill Kelly, he was signed by Arizona. I know he pitched there before. But every other big name free agent pitcher they have ever signed has immediately gotten hurt or stunk with Rodriguez, with Montgomery, with Corbin Burns. So Merrill Kelly is going to break former Guardians draft pick Merrill Kelly. That is, I should say. But you know, it’s, we talked about it. It’s a, not a great market for a team like Cleveland in terms of hitters. So it’s always been kind of behooved them to maybe look more towards trades to find value. But yeah, this has just helped kind of confirm that it’s an ugly market when you know, Polanco gets 20 million a year and Yumsky gets a two year deal. Yeah. And I said on Friday on my, my solo show, I said the Guardian’s approach to free agency doesn’t work. And people got very upset with me about that. And the reason I said that is because they’re never gonna add impact to free agency. Let’s be honest. Like they’ve done the Swisher and Born thing. They tried the Josh Bell and Mike Sonino thing. None of those signings, except for Nick Swisher in 2013 worked out. The rest of them were all garbage. If you, I, I never expect this team to play in the Kyle Tucker, Juan Soto, Manny Machado tier, free agency or Boba shot. Like I don’t ever expect them to play in that tier. I think that’s realistic to say based on market size and, and just what they, what they do here. The problem is they basically only use free agency for depth. Like it’s, it’s Jake Junas and it’s, it’s guys like that, like that’s who they usually add. And the middle tier, like you said, the middle tier is a little better than that. It’s, it’s Mike Yashremsky, it’s, it’s Luke Weaver. It’s, it’s like their guy like in past years at the same time. But like Shumski is like Santana, he’s like a late 30s guy who had a, a second half bat. Like he is their type of guy, you know, that is kind of their mid tier guy, but he hasn’t. Well, we did see Santana nose dive and then make a comeback. So that’s why they tried to bet on him one more time. But yeah, no, he is 100 their type. But that’s, that’s the guy they’re not adding anymore. I have no problems. I’m not resigning Lane Thomas like I’m Chase. The water’s got enough time on the trainers table. I don’t think he can afford to add somebody else to that. But I said the free agent. The free agent method they use doesn’t work because all you’re ever going to do is get the lower tier guys. You’re never going to be able like a middle tier guy would have been Mikey Stremsky. It would have been. That’s essential. They do a Josh Bell. I know it didn’t work. They’re and I know their best free agency picks have usually been the Genuses or their minor league invites. Right. Those are usually the guys that. That work out the best for them. But that doesn’t add impact. That adds depth. So that’s fine if that’s their strategy. I suppose I don’t think it works. But you have to get more aggressive in trades then like I think you have to and. And maybe some of that. I know we were having this debate today or last night through text. You have to be able to execute trades like you have to put more emphasis on player acquisition on that side and that starts with having to have players the teams find attractive. It but it also means you have to gamble a little more. Be willing to give up prospects. What. What was the. Okay, are we calling Gandhi Dia as a prospect when they traded him? Are you still calling him a prospect at that point? No, he was and that’s again that whole situation was just Tito really didn’t like him. Every statement from Tito was negative on him and wouldn’t give him an opportunity and was just always had no faith outside of. So outside of Junior Caminero because we. Know that was 17 year old kid. A lottery ticket for the raise that worked out that cashed in which you know the race. What was the last prospect they traded that they regretted? Well, you and I talked about it. It’s probably Bresnahan right now with. Right, exactly. So yeah, that was Aaron’s question which was a good question. Now I think about it because it was always a good question before Warrior but it’s still even better now that I think about it. What was the last prospect though that made the majors like going back a couple ways. Besides we’re not going to count Caminero because he was a lottery ticket if we’re not considering God they regret trading Jose. Tina. I don’t. Well no, you said the last one to make the majors it was Tina. Well right. Okay. But they regret. Who do they regret? I mean, I, I would have to really sit back and like. Who do they trade for? Joe Smith, it was Samad Taylor and Julian Merryweather. I mean, there’s a time where I regretted Merryweather and then he just couldn’t stay healthy in his stuff for grass. Same thing with JP Fire Eisen. No, I, I think, you know, I agree. I would like to see them go out and potentially be aggressive in trades. It’s also, you know, it. Here’s the thing. They’re never going to be. Free agency is a soccer spot. You’re always buying for paying for past production, not current production. And a lot of times anymore that middle tier doesn’t exist. Guys are signing contracts, guys are getting locked up by teams. There’s less and less. Like, to me personally, I don’t think your Shumski is more low tier than middle tier. To me that’s because he’s a plus defender who’s starting to show regression, who had a terrible first half and then needed a second. And this is saying as someone who liked him. So I think, you know, the free agency is always going to be a bad bet. And I mean, honestly, as a team, their approach is to try to keep it internal, which, you know, teams that I. But I mean that’s, that’s what a lot of teams do. Who are that? I mean the, the Rays, like, who are they signing or trading for? It’s like the Cedric Mullins. I mean, for one year. I mean I, I had no interest in Cedric Mullins after last year. But it’s like, you know, aggressive with trades. They are usually aggressive trading. They’re aggressive trading away their pieces. Right. Because they have to restock. Yeah, they’re always restocking. They’re never aggressive to go out and get anyone. It’s always. They went out and got Chris Morell and that smacked him in the face. Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean that was to give up Paretes who was like less control but like the proven guy. Like it just so like, I mean, unfortunately this is baseball. Cleveland and all these other teams aren’t supposed to be good. Baseball spent, you know, the last hundred years with. You had your big market teams, everyone else with fear systems for those teams. That’s why the Yankees have made so many World Series. That’s why the Dodgers now are like, it’s, it’s a broken system that is not meant for these teams to be consistently successful like they have been. And you know that the, all of these teams have the one thing in common like, they, they’re not going out and getting the big free agents. They’re not going out and trading, you know, four prospects for one guy because they need the ability to have. I mean, look, we talked about how San Diego has got nothing left because San Diego executes those kinds of deals. The only reason they can. They’re still afloat is because they had an owner who was, let’s be honest, who was dying, and he gave them carte blanche and then when he died. Now they’re hosed and they’re trying to figure out ways to cut money. You know, it’s just. It’s such a hard needle to thread. I would like to see them, you know, I. I was all about train Brian Roccia when he was in high A and a top 100 guy. That’s what I’d like to see. To see. My take is this. If you have not regretted a trade, not, not the Junior Camino types like that, it just is what it is there. But if you have not made a trade that you regret on that, on a bigger scale, you’re not making enough, you’re not trying enough. That’s. That’s my. I, I shouldn’t say you’re not trying enough, but you’re not pushing hard enough. Like the player. The team still has to like your players. That’s why they couldn’t land Sean Murphy, so they couldn’t land Matt Olson, even though those trades worked out miserably. Bad for the other teams besides the Braves. But you have to have. That starts with that, acquiring players other teams want, too. And that’s also something this team has had trouble with as well. All right. Speaking of trouble, the Guardians PR wise. I hate to say this. I don’t understand it sometimes. Stephen Vogt. That extension was mirrored and shrouded secrecy. It’s a defining feature of this organization. We’ll talk about it next. 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We knew that there was going to be an extension. We the Guardians said as much that Stephen votes going to be a guardian for a long time but we don’t know any details of the extension and we didn’t know when it was signed. And furthermore I can confirm players didn’t even know about it. Why? Why would you not even I guess the players would tell people or you could get the source from them. But why wouldn’t you want your players to know that hey, Jose, Ramirez, Tanner, by the only two guys in this team that are going to be here for the next several years, this is going to be the guy who’s in charge. Why would you not tell people that? I you know, it’s different. I’ll say that I all I can think is they just didn’t think it was a big deal that, you know, everyone kind of just maybe they thought that hey, you know, we’ll get it done. Everyone expects us to get this done and you know, there are, you know, more pressing things and then they just didn’t think it mattered. It’s weird. It’s different. I’m not gonna really like try to sit back and defend the the whole thing of it, but that’s all I can think is maybe they just thought it wasn’t really that big a news. I feel like they never really announced when Tito got extensions either. It’s just like he had, you know, this is just kind of. They don’t announce anything with their assistance unless someone’s getting hired or leaving. So it just. I think they tend to think that, like, coaching is just stuff that people don’t care about as much. I know, but it’s still positive news. And let’s be honest. No, it is. This organization needs to be able to go out and, and push good news when they have it. Like you found, you know, you. You took a chance on Stephen Vogt because you thought he could be the next great manager here. And so far he has been. I mean, he’s done a great job. We can’t, you know, manage the year back to back years. Even as, as symbolic as that Ward is award is and goofy voting, like, he got enough votes 2 years in a row vote, got enough votes to be the manager of the year. They made the playoffs, they won the division back to back years for the first time since 2017 and 2018 under Tito. The Tito thing, I understood because he had health concerns. So, like, I understood just not being public with details because, like, you know, it was going to be year to year. You didn’t want to push it with his health. He wanted to let it be on his own terms and he had that kind of seniority and clout. I get that. I get that. The vote thing, I don’t understand because you went out and, and you made that higher and you hit a home run like it’s been a great hire. And I don’t know why you wouldn’t want to say we love what we found in vote. We think he’s the right leader for the organization. And this happened like it happened before the 25 season. I can understand, like, if you were thinking about the extension, like in the aftermath of the, the gambling scandal, all that kind of stuff, I could understand that. But you signed it before the season. I don’t understand why that wouldn’t have been bigger news at the time. Like it stops people from trying to poach, like, because, you know, with him being upcoming free agent. We talked about the off season. Like, there was one really terrible Twitter account of the Giants who thought he was gonna be the next manager of the Giants. The unvote and turns out that was ludicrous anyway, but the extension was already signed by then, so even the war didn’t get around anybody in the game. I still understand why you don’t want your players to know. Like, even if you say, like, it’s got to be kept a secret for some reason, like, the players should know. I mean, in public work settings where we are, you want to know how long your boss is going to be your boss, even though we don’t work under. I don’t work under contracts, and I guess it’s probably different for you, but you want to know how much longer your boss is going to be your boss if you’re under contracts. That’s, I don’t know. I guess very strange to me. Things happen, things change. I’ve never actually thought about it. I’ve never thought about if my boss is going to be here. I’ve talked about, like, if they leave, how that would affect what I was doing, but I’ve never thought about beyond that. And I think said, I don’t, I don’t think this is as much nuclear secrets as much as it was. They just didn’t. No, but it’s shared. It’s. It’s the way they operate, though. Like, this is, it is. It’s very, it’s bizarre in this situation specifically. But as an overall organization, they do treat everything as, as very highly top secret. Like, everything’s classified. Like, I, you know, I debated this on my Friday solo show, too. I said I understand the merits of, of not wanting trade secrets to get leaked out. Not like secrets, but like, you know, if you’re, if you’re talking to a team about a player in a trade. Right. We see that, like, the Phillies are involved or the, the Padres are involved, or the Blue Jays are involved in talking to, you know, Kettle Marte, whoever it is. Right. Brendan Donovan. We talked, we had a lot of text about the, the Mariners and Giant situation there. I understand for the Guardians why you don’t want that to be made public. Because you don’t want to be used as a stalking horse. Like, Cleveland’s very particular about their, their value and trades. They don’t want to move off that value for better or for worse. So you don’t want your name out there publicly to be used as a stalking horse. So I get that. Same with free agency, too. You don’t want to have people know that you’re talking to a certain free agent because you don’t want to be used as leverage and you don’t want to be, you know, those kind of things. So I get that, like, what is the benefit of it, of doing it in this situation? Like, Are you trying not to make his salary public because you don’t want to show how much you’re paying him because it sounds like he’s going to be one of the top five managers paid? Like we already talked about it before, that’s only I could think of. I mean, I, I just think again, I, I don’t think it’s anything as serious as you’re making. I just think they, they just got it done. Maybe, for all we know, maybe, maybe Vote didn’t want it out there. You know, it could be stuff like that, but, like, you know, it just feels like I said with Tito, they didn’t really announce it. It kind of eventually just kind of found its way out. And I feel like it’s just kind. Of that I feel like was health, though. I feel like it was all health. It was, but they also didn’t announce it. And it could have been every single time. It could have been a big deal because Tito was arguably the biggest name tied to the team at the times. Even with Jose there, you know, nationally, Tito was probably still more recognized than, than Jose. So they just tend to operate like, hey, you know, it’s, it’s a situation where it almost feels like they’re letting you know the, they’re just, to them, it’s not that big of a deal. And based on, like, the number of tweets I saw from other people when it came out, I mean, I’d be hard pressed to disagree. Not a lot of people outside of the diehards really seem to even run with the information. When it broke with Busan last Friday, like, I think I saw, like, four total tweets, and, like, one was from you, one was from Basan, one was from Meisel, and then, like, one other fan. So it just, I, I, it is a weird situation where it’s like. Because you’ve ever seen any other organization do this, though, have you ever seen that happen? I mean, I don’t pay attention to any other organization to know. Like, I’m not watching them enough in depth to really say that. Yeah, other people are doing similar things. So I, I can’t, I can’t really say one way or another to know enough to, to know. Yeah. Well, let us know in the comments what your conspiracy theory is. Put your tinfoil hat on. Try to figure it out. Let us know. Well, maybe we’ll read some of the best ones in the future. They could be goofy. They could be serious. Who knows? Appreciate you have something else? No. No. Okay. All right. Well, thank you for tuning in today. And so here’s the schedule once again. If you forgot in the last 20 minutes, Wednesday I’ll be hosting solo with you. Jeff will be with you solo on Friday. And Wednesday I’m going to take my run at being the armchair GM of the Guardians. I will tell you what moves I would make this offseason. Gonna be realistic. I’m not gonna say, well, I would sign Carl Tucker. I would have signed Pete Alonso. No, I’m going to tell you what moves I would make if I was running the Guardians as Chris Antenna, you could tell me how stupid I am and how unreal you’re ready to hear. For a Brandon Donovan trade. Maybe. Maybe. No. Kevin, Marty, obviously that’s gonna be Donovan. That’s my prediction. All right, we gotta tune in to find out. You gotta listen. So make sure you subscribe and follow lockdown Guardians to get all the latest episodes. And if locked on Guardians made your Spotify rap. Prove it on social media to secure a free month of our brand new Everyday Air Club tag our national Locked on podcast network account on any social platform. They’ll drop you a code and be one of the first to join the Everyday club to get ad free episodes and access to the members only discord. Thank you all for joining us. Remember to rate and review download daily. It helps throw up an itunes review if you haven’t done that. Or wherever it is you listen. And keep showing us your wraps. We really love seeing them. Thank you all and go, go Guardians. Go. Merry.

Cleveland Guardians are facing an inflection point of the offseason with no new bats and minimal roster moves. Will their 2026 hopes hinge on prospects Chase DeLauter and Travis Bazzana and does that mean they NEED to be on the Opening Day Roster? The front office’s commitment to youth leaves us to wonder if deliberate service time manipulation is right for Bazzana while DeLauter’s injury history complicates his role on the Opening Day roster.
Justin Lada and Jeff Ellis analyze the stagnant free agent market, weigh the value of trade aggressiveness, and dissect Cleveland’s penchant for secrecy, including the under-the-radar extension of manager Stephen Vogt. Is the Guardians’ strategy smart, or does their reluctance to take risks on the trade front and in player acquisitions jeopardize their path back to World Series contention?

03:45 Prospect Timing and Team Strategy
09:11 Roster Decisions and Prospects Debate
12:43 Free Agency Market Analysis
13:42 Cleveland’s Tough Free Agent Market
19:53 Baseball’s Uneven Playing Field
23:44 Stephen Vogt’s Secret Contract Extension

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